The real monster is in your mind

Chapter 8 - back to school

TRIGGER WARNING - SELF HARM - if this is triggering skip to the next chapter please <3

soon its time for lily to go back to school and she is excited but scared. She feels like people wil see her and instantly think that shes put on weight, even thogh she knowws logically that wuoldnt happen.

The morning of school, she sat on her bed getting ready, she hated what she saw when she looked down, she hated the way her school skirt and tights felt on her bdy, she hated the way her clothes weren't falling of her anymore, she hated that her legs didn't look as thin as they where before. It had only been 3 weeks but she looked completely different, at least that was what lily thought.

"Lily!! welcome back lovely, you look good"

"they said you look good, that means you don't look sick, you must look fat. OH MY GOD YOU ARE FAT they think your fat your supposed to look sick not healtthy why don't you look sick what have you done you shouldt of put on any weight they must be able to see it

Lily felt strange when she went back to school, she felt different. She cried, she cried for hours and she hadnt don't that in months about anything other than food but this time she cried about everything

oh my god wait im feeling things again. Shit shit shit, I didn't even realise I wasnt before... Wow I...i forgot how good it felt to cry

later that day lily started having stomach pains, her head keep feeling funny to, she couldn't focus on anything. Then she realised why, she had got her period back. She immediately freaked out and felt like a huge failure.

"NO YOUR BODY CANT WORK NORMALLY AGAIN, THAT ISNT ALLOWED. PERIODS ARE FOR HEALTHY PEOPOLE NOT SICK PEOPLE, YOU SHOULDNT HAVE ONE. WHY HAVE YOU LET THIS HAPPEN? YOU SHOULDNT BE HEALTHY"

okay, okay calm down.this is what you wanted, you wanted to get better. You wanted to get your period back. Its ok, its just your body healing, its ok just breathe. Its fine, its not the end of the world everyone has one, it doesn't make you fat

"IT DOES MAKE YOU FAT!!! ANOREXIC PEOPLE DONT HAVE PERIODS. YOU DIDNT WANT TO GET BETTER WHY ARE YOU LYING TO YOURSELF???"

they do. Not having a period is unhealthy, its not whats meant to happen, you wouldnt of been able to have children if you carried on, you really would rather have no period and end up screweing your chances of having kids then eat some bloody food?

"yes."

well, you arent me and I don't want to ruin my chances of anything.

"LILY, YOU SHOULD NOT HAVE A PERIOD"

Lily felt so guilty, she felt like she shouldn't be getting bettter, she felt guilty that her body was healing itself, she didn't think it was what she wanted but she knew deep down it was, it was so so hard because the voice was pushing through harder than ever because there was physcial sign she was getting better. But lily had to keep going, and try her hardest to ignore it.

Slowly, she is starting to realise that that as soon as the ed takes back some of the control the arguments start happening witht the family again, lily starts feeling like shes pulling everyone apart and the whole feeling around the house chages. Its like living in absolute hell dealing with extreme hunger and recovering because your body is telling you to do the complete opposite of what your mind is telling you and the guilt kills you. You literally want to die, its like whatever you do you just cant get rid of it. Every day the voice tells you you shouldn't be doing it and that you need to carry on longer ebfore you get better, but in reality you would never feel reday to get better. She is allowed to go for walks now, and bike rides again and she didn't realise how much she had missed it.

Oh my god, I forhot how much I loved being outside

"shut up, just go walk further now."

the beach is great

"lily hello, listen to me. Get up and walk, your allowed to now."

I know im allowed to, but im not supposed to if its only because your telling me to

"SERIOUSLY LILY. GET UP."

N.O.!

Shes found new ways to cope now(or going back to old ways), unhelpful ways. Cutting herself, running baths too hot til her skin goes red, distracting herself with texting people but then that becoming all she does. She is losing the one thing that she thought made her herself for so long, she was always "the skinny one" or "the one that doestn eat" and now thats going she has no idea who she is or what shes meant to be.

Without spending all her time adding up calories and exercising and worrying about the next meal she doesn't know what shes meant to do. She completely lost herself and that realisation is the scariest part of all, aswell as realising how sick she actually was and how close she was to killing herselfjust like everyone kept telling her. She would've been dead if she carried on for much longer. Its strangely comforting to have people worrying about you when you get really skinny and that changing is scary to, it feels like the pressure is back and Lily cant just hide in the shadows for ever like she was before. The ed is like a safety blanket and when that Is gone everything else comes back, but its not gone its jut invisible to everyone else.

"you know you have to cut yourself if you eat, to punish yourself. You cant eat and just get away with it and you need to do something to cope with the feelings when your eating all this junk food, you know you would be way happier if you didn't do this"

Dadddd, can we go to the shop"

"sure lils, lets go"

"don't ask for the biscuits"

"can we get some of these?" lily asked as she icked u a pack of biscuits

"I said don't ask for the biscuits

"yeah ok."

"WHY DID YOU ASK FOR THE BLOODY BISCUITS."

-at the checkout-

Jesus its like diabetes in a bag isnt it coming shopping with you two says lilys dad as he points at lily and her brother.

Wow dad. Thanks for that

"THERE YOU GO LILY, EXACTLY WHAT HE SAID. TO MUCH SUGAR, TO MUCH UNHEALTHY FOOD, EVERYONE WILL THINK YOUR DISGUSTING BUYING ALL THIS, WHY DID YOU ASK FOR THOSE BISCUITS."

Over time the cutting got better, but she kept feeling like making herself sick a lot more than she ever had before. She tried a few times but never managed it out of fear that her mum would hear, then her mum would blame herself because thats what she used to do, thats what she struggled with for 8 years.

Slowly, the voice is getting the tineiest bit qieter, or lily is just getting stronger and getting better at takling back at it.